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If there are two things I love, it’s weird food promotions and Sonic the Hedgehog. So when those two combine, I’m a very happy man (hey, I even made a YouTube series dedicated to such things). Jones Soda, creator of delicious and decidedly weird sodas, has teamed with SEGA to release Sonic, Tails and Knuckles inspired beverages to promote Sonic Mania. TheLimited Edition Sonic Mania Jones Soda bottles are currently exclusive to Comic Con, but comments on their Facebook demanding a wide release have been met with Jones Soda replying “stay tuned”. It is worth noting that Jones Soda has a robust online store, so perhaps an online exclusive is in the works? As for the flavors themselves, we have Sonic Blue Bubblegum Soda, Tails Orange Cream Soda and Knuckles Strawberry Lime Soda. If you are attending Comic Con, swing by the Futurism Pavilion at the Omni for a chance to win some.

It’s here, the brand new side-scrolling Sonic game! No, not Sonic Mania. It’s Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice for the Nintendo 3DS! In this SEGA News Bits, Barry shares with George, and our viewing audience, his thoughts on the game. Did SEGA and Sanzaru Games learn their lesson from Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal? In the comments below, let us know what you think of Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice! Also, don’t hate Barry.

SEGA News Bits is a production of SEGAbits, covering all things SEGA and Sonic the Hedgehog. When we touch on Sonic stories, you’ll be seeing them here on Sonic Retro as well. If you enjoyed this episode of the SEGA News Bits, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel and never miss an episode!

17 years ago saw the launch of the Dreamcast in North America on September 9th 1999. We’ll be taking a look at games that launched day and date with the system and share our memories with SEGA’s last major console.

Sega held a party for Sonic’s 25th anniversary at one of their Joypolis parks in Japan earlier today, which they live streamed online. There they showed new gameplay of Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice and announced that the next main Sonic game will be released in 2017.

But the coolest thing that was shown was the original concept art of various Sonic characters. While a bunch of it has been shown before (and can be found on our wiki), we also get to see never before seen design sketches of characters like Shadow the Hedgehog, E-102 Gamma and Big the Cat for the first time. You can see all of the concept art that was shown above.

To my friends at Sega of America: I, along with the video game historian community, believe the contributions you have made at work are worthy of preservation—and the fact that Sega of America’s Potrero Hill office is closing puts the preservation of precious historical material at risk. We’ve seen this happen before with Sega’s European offices and want to ensure that future generations know the value of the work you have done.

I will be in San Francisco for several days in April; as such, I would be happy to take any material you have under strict confidentiality—or any face punches for having made fun of the thing you worked on. Likewise, if you are planning to relocate to the greater Los Angeles area, I can meet up with you within a few days’ notice (and get some Eggslut or something, because LA.)

Any materials or documentation we collect will be held for an extended period of time, will be digitized and physical copies will be donated anonymously to Britain’s National Media Museum (or an equivalent American institution should one appear within the next five years.)

Forum member Jollyroger has managed to get the leaked POV version of Sonic X-treme to run on a SEGA Saturn. While he hasn’t been able to record footage of it yet as he doesn’t have a video capture device, he did take a photo of the tech demo running on his Cartdev/Mirage.

According to Jollyroger, this shows that while the version is nowhere near playable in its current state, it shows that Point of View would have been capable of making a reasonable version of the game for the Saturn if they had enough time.